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Talk:Knights of Pen
Why thank you! More motivation to clean up and refine this guide, double thank you :} To your questions: 1) The Human Race is indeed SAKA, and if you had the Ninja be a Human in the max carnage party the Ninja would have more energy and max out Vanish one level sooner, and these are both good things (although this Ninja is low on energy use, so that's not much of a boon). But the point of this party is to tweak each Player and Class to dish out their maximum possible damage. Being an Elf for the Ninja here means another 1% increase in critical chance (and 1 more point in Initiative, not that that really matters). That is, granted, only 1% more - but still that means more chance of more damage. Being behind one level isn't going to make as much of a difference because a maxed Vanish skill is a maxed skill. True, the Ninja Human will have one more point in Shadow Chain (you know, unless you follow my experience tweaking tips and get the two skills maxed anyway), which does mean more direct damage, so you could argue for that. Still, even if it's an equivalent bonus in the end, I like having at least one non-human Player in the team, plus one more point in Senses helps with rest and resistance rolls, as a very minor thing. 2) Again here it's about a minor difference, where the Exchange Student gets a little more health and a slightly stronger basic attack (and a little unwanted extra Threat). Also, your Thief will be one level higher as the Exchange Student, which won't make any difference once Barrage of Knives is maxed, but it's something. Filling out the Bestiary is still possible without the Bookworm, and the only tactical benefit of doing that is a 2 damage soft spot bonus for a full entry anyway. It's not nothing, but it's pretty close. Still, I did put both of those players up there because really it makes little difference. If you want a full Bestiary (without having to set up fight after fight after fight) more than you want to squeeze out a little extra basic damage and health and experience for your Thief, go with the Bookworm. 3) For the Knight no because of how he works. And for the Warrior no because of a lack of synergy. You could replace the Barbarian with the Druid, I'll go over that, but replacing the Thief or Paladin is too detrimental to the teamwork here. The Knight is amazing at criticals, but if you're using your Knight efficiently you're using him defensively with Bulwark, probably more often then you lash out with True Strike. And if you don't use Bulwark, then True Strike's critical chance is minimal, so there's no workaround there. He's an awesome asset in any team, but not part of the whole maximum carnage concept. The Warrior is most excellent but he suffers from a lack of synergy with this team. The Barbarian here is better because he can boost his critical chance, which means Sudden Death on bosses is at least possible - and lest we forget, he's also capable of multipe critical hits in sequence thanks to that 1 point in Rampage. As to replacing the Thief with the Warrior, not a great idea, because the Thief provides the single highest group (and total) damage attack in the game. And the Paladin, in this team, is providing the group conditions to double the Thief's damage. You could replace the Paladin with the Warrior, thereby requiring the Mage to bring Fireball to the fight instead of Lightning, but that means you just deprived your party of the best single row damaging skill in the game - in so doing reducing the maximum possible carnage and that's just not what this team is about. Finally as to the 1 point Ward Druid, his damage output is (eventually) so high it could be worth considering replacing the Barbarian (but not the Thief or Paladin, for the same reasons as not replacing them with the Warrior). First though this means goodbye to even the option of boss Sudden Death. Second, the Druid only really shines with both Animal Companion and Feral Mauling at pretty high levels, where the Barbarian is already impressively mighty with Anger Management maxed, 1 point in Rampage, and Frenzied Strike at low levels. Third, a 1 point Ward Druid needs to be the Rocker so he can survive even a mildly challenging fight, which makes for a compromising choice for the Ninja, who then needs to be some other, less protective player. Now you might be asking yourself why the Ninja really needs to be the Rocker since he won't be getting hit with his 1 Threat anyway? And for most fights, this is true. But against Dragons, almost every boss, and group damaging enemies, your Ninja then becomes a liability because Vanish does not last long, and that +5 War Hammer brings a lot of agro. Still, you could have your Ninja be a Jock or something and still be viable and just accept the fact your Ninja's gonna die a few times. So, in the end, it's a doable option - replacing the Barbarian with the Druid - and seeing the maxed out version of this Druid in action is a delight with the added bonus of warding from time to time. But I still prefer the Barbarian, and the Thief and Paladin are integral to this team. 4) Good question. It kind of depends on how much gold you have. Meaning, if you wanna do the devs a favor, bust out your 8 bucks to get 10,000 gold to buy 10 Phoenix Feathers and 30-40 of each potion. That'll see you through anything with any team. But that's not your question. The thing about this team is that healing isn't going to be too much of a problem. Your Barbarian, at least for the second half of the game (when things get really tough) is going to be healing himself. And similarly your Paladin will increasingly become a healing god as he levels up his second skill. The problem then is energy. Your Barbarian plows through it. Your Thief burns it like kindling in a forest fire. The Ninja and Paladin are more reasonable and the Mage pretty much takes care of himself the higher Arcane Flow gets. As to dying, well, the only reason that would happen at all is if you ran out of energy. So MP potions are the key. At a minimum I'd bring 2 Phoenix Feathers (most likely for the Mage or Thief getting unlucky), probably 10 HP potions just so the Paladin doesn't have to do all the healing, and then at least 20 MP potions. Honestly though by the time you get to Dragons, even on your first playthrough, you should have enough gold that spending a thousand on potions is within your reach. If you wanna dig deeper into the game (and be mildly thrifty) you can also go to the nearest tavern and buy a bunch of beers, go off and kill a bunch of (regular blue) Bandits/Frost Elfs as well as a bunch of Bee Swarms/Giant Flytraps to collect Blue Dye and Pollen (respectively) and craft yourself a bunch of Energy Elixirs in Big Town for a total cost of 10 gold per potion produced (5 for beer, 5 to craft). Beer does show up as an item drop from kills, rarely, but I haven't noticed a monster that consistently drops them (if you find one, let me know). These are twice as powerful as the regular energy potion and cost the same. You know, if you don't count the labor. So this is, obviously, tedious - and using them oustide of a fight means you're only saving the gold, but in a fight it can make a pretty big difference. Hope that helps. And thank you again, it's good to know people like what I like and how I geek out on it. Happy playing!